A blog about homebrewing and craft beer in South Africa

Åbro Brewery and Cape Brewing Company

Now it is official! The Swedish brewery Åbro is going to establish them self in South Africa.

Henrik Dunge, Managing Director at Åbro Brewery tells me that: It is going to be a joint venture between Åbro and Charles Back, the owner of Fairview / Seidelberg. The brewmaster is going to be Wolfgang Ködel (former brewmaster at Paulaner in Cape Town). The new brewery is going to have a capacity of 1,6 million liters (a 30 hl brewery). In South Africa we could brew some special beers and maybe some of them will be exported to Sweden.

They are going to both bottle and keg their beers. The first brew is planned to November 2012.

This is fantastic news. Not that Åbro i famous for brewing great beers but this kind of cooperation is great news. New beers might be imported to South Africa and hopefully South African beers can be exported to Sweden. I am going to follow this project really close.

This is not the first time a Swedish brewer/brewery is going to establish in South Africa. Swedish brewers has been involved in South African beer and brewing for more than 200 years. You could still visit some of the old brewery buildings at Newlands Brewery (Heritage Park). Jacob Letterstedt emigrated from Sweden in 1819 and came to Cape Town in 1920. Soon after that he started the Mariendahl Brewery in Newlands. The second person from Sweden who was involved in a brewery was Anders Ohlsson. In the 1860th he started Anneberg Brewery with the best selling Lion Lager as prime product.